This invention relates in general to the field of carpet production, and in particular, to carpet yarn creels.
Carpet tufting machines are relatively compact devices. However, substantial space within a carpet production facility is required for the entire tufting process. In addition to the space occupied by a tufting machine (i.e. the tufter) itself, there must be roll-up or additional processing equipment, or both, positioned downstream from the tufter.
Substantial additional space is required to supply yarn to the tufter. Yarn is typically supplied directly to the tufter by one of two methods. It may come from a xe2x80x9ccreel,xe2x80x9d which is a rack holding large bobbins or packages of yarn that spool off of the bobbins and into the tufter. Conventional creels occupy substantial floor space xe2x80x9cupstreamxe2x80x9d from the tufter because of the size of the packages or bobbins of yarn and the space needed to hold them so that the many separate strands of yarn can be pulled off the bobbins and fed into the tufting machine. The floor space required by a standard warper and creel is on the order of 2,000 square feet.
Alternatively, yarn can be fed to the tufting machine from a xe2x80x9cbeam,xe2x80x9d a large horizontal mandrel onto which multiple strands of yarn of the needed colors are wound in advance. The yarn strands are then unwound simultaneously from the beam into the tufter. While beams typically require substantially less space immediately in front of the tufter than conventional creels, substantial space is needed, and significant work is required to prepare the beam, because in order to position yarn on a beam, bobbins or yarn packages must be positioned on creels to xe2x80x9cfeedxe2x80x9d the beam, much as the yarn packages would be positioned to feed a tufter directly.
A significant challenge to carpet manufacturers is to reduce the amount of yarn waste occurring in the manufacturing of carpet. Wasted yarn can occur in several stages during the manufacturing process. For example, there can be yarn waste due to tufting beam waste, production beam waste and/or warping beam waste. A cause of waste is the inability to effectively determine the amount of yarn that is needed for a particular piece of carpet. As yarn is fed into a tufting machine it may be realized that yarn length for one color in a pattern is too short while yarn length for another color in the pattern is too long, resulting in wasted yarn. Large bobbins of yarn or beams of yarn compound the problem due to the sheer size of the yarn contained. A compact creel with smaller yarn packages reduces waste in the manufacturing process. Another significant problem is carpet overrun overage.
Therefore, a need exists for a compact creel that occupies less space on the manufacturing floor and reduces yarn waste in the manufacturing process, while enabling the same quantities of carpet production as that produced from a conventional creel.
This invention is a highly mobile, compact creel that utilizes frames for holding yarn packages (or bobbins), where the packages may be in the form supplied by the yarn supplier (typical sizes are initially about 6 inches or about 10-11 inches in diameter). Each frame can hold yarn packages facing front and back. Each creel frame can hold, for instance, about 416 yarn packages, for a total of approximately 832 yarn packages, so that the two sides of the frames together hold sufficient yarn ends for a typical carpet tufting machine. Other numbers of packages can also be accommodated, and multiple frames can be used to feed a single tufting machine.
A header having adjustable bars and slots for the yarn mates and affixes to the frame. This header provides for aligning all of the yarn ends in the same plane in order to join them to ends already threaded into the tufting machine.
In operation, yarn spools off of the end of the yarn package, through an eyelet (or yarn eye), through a rigid tube affixed to the frame (and inside the hollow yarn package), and through a flexible tube leading to the top of the frame, and into the header. The flexible tube typically passes through the rigid tube on which the package rests and a yarn eye at the end of the rigid tube can be formed on the end of the flexible tube. The floor space required for two 16 foot frames of the compact creel of this invention is on the order of 160 square feet.
A yarn reclamation procedure of this invention strips the yarn packages without unloading the yarn packages from the creel. The ends of the yarn tie from head to tail. The portable creel is placed in front of a backwinder head, and skinner yarn pieces wind onto one package or a few packages.
Objects of this invention include:
To provide a compact creel that reduces yarn waste in the tufting, production and warping processes.
To provide an alternative use for warping beam yarn, other than overrun carpet or beam waste.
To provide a compact creel that increases the quality of the finished product by reducing slack ends.
To provide yarn inventory reduction and decreased amounts of material handling.
To provide a compact creel that requires less floor space.
To provide an efficient reclamation procedure.
To provide a compact creel that reduces the labor required in the warping process.
To provide simplified scheduling and increased plant through-put time.
To provide all the same features for sample production and carpet development.
As the following description and accompanying drawings make clear, these and other objects are achieved by this invention.